AUDIOMACK’S FOOTPRINT IN ESWATINI

Mbabane – Eswatini striving digitally!

The past couple of months have been buzzing with questions between content creators and the industry heads. Most of these conversations were based on artists seeing their quality of work matching foreign artists, but their pay below average if available. This cause for concern will come to a pause as the Audiomack has signed a licensing deal with Universal Music Group, two weeks ago for their expansion in Africa. This came at the right time for Africa as a whole, because Universal Music Group is the biggest music company in the world, housing international artists namely; 2-Chains and BTS, just to name a few. The company is known to make billions and even big chunks of change for artists also.

Launched in 2012, Audiomack is an artist-first music streaming platform that allows creators to share unlimited music and podcast content for free. The App provides download access and unlimited streaming of the newest music. One of its advantages is that it doesn’t have a paywall blockage. A paywall blockage is a method of restricting access to content, with a particular paid subscription. The best part about is, it focuses on new, independent and up and coming artists. This means that once your Audiomack account is authenticated, it allows the artist or content creator to unlock some special benefits besides the earnings, like direct contact with fans, gaining automated notifications and releasing full on projects.

This came as a huge win for the local entertainment industry, as most upcoming artists have uploaded their music and audio creations on this platform. So what does it mean for the artist body? All the benefits that are received by international artists through this platform, are now available for them. This deal expands on the previously signed licensing agreement between Audiomack and Universal Music Group which didn’t include Eswatini or other African countries.

solidified

This partnership was solidified on June 22, this year. Dave Macli, Audiomack co-founder and CEO commemorated the event by saying, “Millions of listeners across Africa use this App every day, and this deal will help artists in these regions better connect to their fans and to tap into a new audience, which is the rest of the world,” said Macli. Sipho Dlamini, CEO at Universal Music South Africa was excited for the future developments of the streaming business in the region. This is a win because artists can now monetise their music and receive the money directly from the Audiomack backend.

Artists in the newly added regions of Africa can now access their streaming revenue directly without checking with intermediaries, like record labels and publishers. The platform is set to pay a creator between US$1 to US$5 (E17 to E85) for 1000 streams. The earnings vary from time to time, depending on the amount of plays that the artist has on that particular time.  Although this streaming platform has recently found its feet, a couple of local artists have uploaded their music on it, which only benefits the streams by fans, and not diving into the business side of things.

tapped

Spaceboy, Fisokuhle Dlamini and Hip Hop artist KingJR are a few names in the kingdom that have tapped into this streaming platform. KingJR was the first Eswatini artist to be verified on this music platform, meaning he can now benefit in terms of money. Born Luyanda Duke Mbingo, he was verified back in 2021, and at the time the artist was sitting at over 4 300 total plays on the streaming platform. His songs average over 1 000 streams each. “The difference between this music download App and others, is the fact that you start earning your royalties after being verified, and your content play is monetised. ‘‘I started earning from 2000 streams, now I’m earning 8000 and I’m doing this as an independent artist,’’ said Mbingo. Another artist, Spaceboy has made great progress on the App, he currently has over 400 plays so far as seen on the App.

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